graffiti24_023_pc.jpg A pedestrian walks near an advertisement spray-painted on the sidewalk promoting a new science fiction TV series. The city is demanding the network reimburse the costs for removing the ads. Sidewalk graffiti advertising a cable TV series at 24th and Noe in San Francisco on 7/23/04. PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND S.F. CHRONICLE/ - MAGS OUT less

graffiti24_023_pc.jpg A pedestrian walks near an advertisement spray-painted on the sidewalk promoting a new science fiction TV series. The city is demanding the network reimburse the costs for removing the ... more

Photo: PAUL CHINN

Photo: PAUL CHINN

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graffiti24_023_pc.jpg A pedestrian walks near an advertisement spray-painted on the sidewalk promoting a new science fiction TV series. The city is demanding the network reimburse the costs for removing the ads. Sidewalk graffiti advertising a cable TV series at 24th and Noe in San Francisco on 7/23/04. PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND S.F. CHRONICLE/ - MAGS OUT less

graffiti24_023_pc.jpg A pedestrian walks near an advertisement spray-painted on the sidewalk promoting a new science fiction TV series. The city is demanding the network reimburse the costs for removing the ... more

NBC may have misjudged its audience when it hired a local firm to stencil teasers for a new television show on sidewalks across San Francisco. The guerrilla marketing graffiti didn't hook residents; it made them mad -- and now, city officials are asking the broadcasting company to pay thousands of dollars to make up for its misdeed.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday most likely will approve a resolution urging the city attorney to coordinate with the Department of Public Works to collect damages from the broadcasting company. Fines alone for a first-time graffiti vandal run $100 to $300 per site.

But that's not all. The resolution's author, Supervisor Bevan Dufty, wants to use the graffiti as a tool to persuade NBC to make a sizable donation to fund beautification projects in San Francisco.

He's taking his cue from a 2001 incident in which then-Supervisor Gavin Newsom wrangled more than $100,000 out of IBM after the computer giant misguidedly spray-painted ads for its Linux program all over the city using a substance that had to be soda-blasted off.

"They've apologized," Dufty said of NBC. "But I want more than that. Given this is the second time it has happened, I want to send the message to these corporations that graffiti is not OK in San Francisco."

Meanwhile, the Public Works Department unit responsible for cleaning graffiti is struggling to keep up with its normal caseload while at the same time removing the stencils, which read "The 4400 are coming." The phrase refers to a science fiction miniseries that debuted July 11 on USA Network, part of NBC Universal.

"It's everywhere," said Mohammed Nuru, deputy director of operations for public works. "Before, we were able to address a problem within one to two weeks. Now, we're backlogged -- we have pages and pages of backlog."

Since June 23, when the first of dozens of phone calls and e-mails started coming into his office, crews have spent 35 hours and more than $3,000 removing 63 stencils -- and more keep being reported.

On Friday, no one at NBC or USA Network was available or willing to discuss the marketing campaign.

But in an earlier e-mail sent to the Public Works Department, NBC/USA Network Promotions Director Michael Dare said that the stenciling had ceased June 30. He also said that USA Network had hired a street cleaning team to remove the graffiti, but as of Friday, there was no evidence that had been done, said Christine Falvey, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Works.

Promoters of the show conducted similar guerrilla marketing efforts in Houston and Boston, she said.

"Once contacted, (NBC) said they did not know it was against the law," Falvey said. "Diverting resources from graffiti removal is something that you don't want to do, especially when it's a corporate entity stenciling our sidewalks. And then to say they don't know it's against the law is ridiculous."

Kevin O'Callaghan, a groundskeeper at Star of the Sea Catholic Church at Eighth Avenue and Geary Boulevard, said he was intrigued by the tagging he saw outside the church but got concerned when graffiti remover was ineffective in removing it. The Geary corridor, along with the Castro and Haight-Ashbury neighborhoods, were the hardest hit.

"If I could have cleaned it up, I wouldn't have minded it as much," O'Callaghan said.

Although Dare, in his e-mail, called the material a water-based marking chalk, Nuru and others who have tried to remove the stenciling say that it's a much more permanent substance.

"Let's put it this way: It's not something you wash off with a hose," Nuru said. "You need some sort of power pressure."

The stenciling in the Castro angered Jamison Wieser, a Duboce Triangle resident, who scraped two off of his street using a wire barbecue brush.

"It's very mean to just vandalize someone's neighborhood," he said. "There's also the fact that there's a place for legal advertising. By doing this, they're depriving the city of revenue."

All of those people interviewed said they had not watched the show.

"I won't watch the show," Wieser said. "I don't know anything about it other than it was a show advertised by graffiti in my neighborhood. It very well might be something I'd like, but I'm not even going to give it a chance now."

Residents can request that a stencil be removed by calling the city's graffiti hot line at 28-clean (282-5326).